Category Archives: asyndeton

Asyndeton (a-syn’-de-ton): The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect. [Compare brachylogia. Opposite of polysyndeton.]

There were hundreds of crows. Circling. Cawing. Looking down at the cornfield. Looking down at me. I had been hired by the richest man in the county, if not the state, to be his personal scarecrow. I had gone through rigorous training in Kansas where all the large corporate corn farms have living scarecrows. They’re called “Scare Boys” and most of them are high school dropouts with a story to tell, I dropped out of high school to earn money after my father took off with “Hairy Mary” when the traveling carnival visited town. He was bald, so maybe Mary made him feel better. On the other hand, my father always said he should’ve been a cat. Snuggling with Mary’s hairy torso might’ve made him feel like a cat. This is just speculation, what else can I do?

So, the crows were checking me out, swooping lower and lower. I was dressed in a three piece suit. My employer believed it was less likely the crows would poop on me if I wore a suit. I believed the opposite. I was right. The crows rained down a cloudburst of poop. It was like my beautiful suit had been smeared with Fluff marshmallow spread. Luckily, I was wearing a wide brimmed cowboy hat so my head was spared. It was time to scare some crows!

I put on my eye protectors in case they tried to peck my eyeballs out. We had watched “The Birds” as part of our training, so eye pecking by angry birds was on the menu. They were starting to dip, trying to knock my hat off and peck on my head until they drilled into my brain and killed me. I pulled down my chin strap. There was no way my hat was coming off.

I pulled my stadium horn from its holster and blew the Crow Panic sound. The flock lost its formation, crows were colliding and falling out of the sky. Then, I blew Crow Retreat. The crows flocked back up and flew away, leaving behind their dead and wounded comrades. I kept blowing Crow Retreat until they disappeared over the horizon. I put my stadium horn away and noticed there was a wounded crow by my foot. I picked it up. Brought it home. Nursed it back to health. I named him CORAX, which means raven or crow in Greek. I learned that in Scare Boy school. I taught CORAX to be an informant, sort of like Paul Revere, alerting me when the “crows are coming.” I rewarded him handsomely for his spying—he had a spacious nest in a solid silver cupola, specially built as his home. He was fed the finest organic corn that money could buy. With minor surgery on his tongue, he was able to speak. He learned Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and “Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.” He could also carry on a rudimentary conversation. We worked together for nearly ten years, and then CORAX was found out and assassinated by a hit crow from Miami (we’re pretty sure of this),

I retired after CORAX was taken out by the hitter. Some day, I’m going to write a book about my career as a Scare Boy. Scare Boys are no more. Now they have stadium horns embedded in giant mechanical crows. The operator monitors the cornfields from a remote panel with CCTV and presses buttons turning the stadium horns off and on for miles around.

Now, I am working on developing a home for orphaned crows. There is an abandoned Speedy Lube nearby that I have my eye on. Send money to ComeAndFundMe at “Crow’s Nest.” I will be grateful.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Bracketed text added by Gorgias.

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